Reading the Raven Boys
by life is short so am I
Summary: Blue, Gansey, Ronan, Adam and Noah find themselves in a forest with no idea how they got there. Then a book hits Ronan on the head. A reading the book fic. Set after the prologue but before the actual book starts.
1. The Summary

**I'm not quite sure that reading the books stuff is still allowed. If it is... Well, here you go! **

Blue Sargent wasn't a naturally suspicious person. Still, she felt a little uncomfortable around her half-Aunt. She felt really uncomfortable when the place she woke up in wasn't, in fact her room. Nor was she in her bed.

Instead she was on the forest floor, on a bed of leaves, surrounded by four boys.

And now she was past uncomfortable. One of them was glaring at her like she was the cause of all of his problems in life. Another had a hand on his shoulder, as if to restrain him. The other two were looking at her curiously. She silently nicknamed them Mr. President Guy, Soldier Boy, Smudgy Boy and Elegant Boy.

And that was before a book came flying out of nowhere and hit the glaring one on the back of his head.

Blue scrambled to her feet, and backed up to a tree. To say Soldier Boy didn't look happy would be an understatement.

"What's this?" Mr. President Guy said, picking up the book with his forefinger and his thumb, as if it would bite.

"A book," Soldier Boy said sarcastically.

"Hmm," Mr. President Gus said, turning it over to read the summary out loud, **"There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark's Eve. Either you're his true love... or you've killed him."**

Blue frowned. The boys seemed to forget that she was there, attention fixed on Mr. President Guy.

**"Every year, Blue Sargent-"**

"What!?" Blue said, eyes wide as the boys whipped towards her.

"What?" The Elegant Boy said, "Do you know what we're doing here?"

He seemed genuine, enough and the boys all seemed like they knew each other. So they didn't bring her there.

"No," Blue said after a moment, "My name is Blue Sargent."

"Oh, I'm Gansey. This is Adam, Ronan and Noah," Mr. President Guy said, pointing to Elegant Boy, Soldier Boy and Smudgy Boy, "So, book sounds interesting so far. Did somebody you know write it?"

"No. I didn't known that there was a book written with my name in it," she said eyeing it.

"Well, only way to know is to keep reading," Gansey said cheerfully, as if they weren't in the middle of the forest with no idea how they got there.

**"Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother the soon-to-be dead walk past." **Gansey read.

Blue frowned again, "That's true. It's true that we do that."

"How does that work?" Adam asked, frowning.

"My family is psychic," Blue said.

Ronan scoffed.

Rolling his eyes, Gansey started to read again, **"Blue never sees them - until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her."**

"What!" Blue exclaims, surprised, "That's impossible!"

"I thought you said that your family was psychic," Ronan said, eyes narrowed at her.

"I did," Blue said defiantly, "And my family is psychic. But I'm not."

"So you can only see the dead on St. Mark's Eve if you're psychic, you've killed them, or your their true love," Adam summarized.

Blue's eyes widened. _Oh._

Noah cleared his throat, "Maybe if we read more, it'll make more sense."

**"His name is-" **Gansey cuts himself off abruptly, face going pale as he stares blankly at the page.

"What?" Adam asked.

Ronan grabbed the book and scanned over the last couple of lines.

Scoffing, he passes the book back to Gansey, "You know that this crap isn't true. What, we wake up in a forest with some weird girl, and a book that says you're going to die. Please Gansey. I thought you had common sense."

"And I can't see the dead. So, you have no worries," Blue said, waving away his concerns.

"But," Gansey floundered, "You know what it said at the beginning."

"So she's either you true love or she killed you. We won't find out until we read it," Noah pointed out.

Ronan glared at her.

**"His name is Gansey, and he's a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school." **Gansey read.

Blue pulled a face.

**"Blue has a policy for staying away from Aglionby boys."**

"Why?" Noah asked.

Blue shook her head.

**"Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble."**

"Isn't that a little prejudiced?" Adam said frowning.

"Well, I've never met one that makes me reconsider, so no," Blue said.

**"But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way that she can't explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher who notices many things but says very little." **

"Yep, sounds like us," Ronan snickers.

"How would anybody know that?" Adam says looking a little spooked.

"The same way we got here I suppose," Gansey shrugged.

**"For as long as she can remember, Blue has been told that she will cause her true love to die."**

"That's harsh," Adam sympathized.

Blue felt her face glowing red. Nobody outside of her family ever knew this.

"Please," Ronan muttered rolling his eyes.

**"She doesn't believe in true true love and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore."**

"Right," Gansey said, putting away the book, "Explain."

"Well," Blue said, "My family is psychic, but I'm not. And they say that if I ever kiss my true love, he will die."

The boys sucked in a breath.

"I repeat my earlier statement. That's harsh," Adam said.

"I don't see the big idea, true love isn't real," Blue said.

"But that means that you can't kiss anybody, like, ever, incase they die," Noah said.

"Yeah. And I don't want to," Blue said, with steel in her eyes.

"But-" Adam started.

"I'm never going to be able to kiss anybody, so stop trying to convince me that it would be a good idea," Blue said.

The boys glanced at each other.

"Alright," Gansey said, sounding unconvinced.

Blue shot him a glare.

"Are we going to keep reading it?" Noah asked.

"No. I'm getting out of here," Ronan said.

As soon as he tried to leave though, he stopped.

"I thought you were going," Gansey said frowning at him.

"I'm trying. I can't move," Ronan growled.

Gansey and Adam stood up, but as soon as they got to Ronan, they stopped as well.

"So we can't leave," Gansey said, walking back to where Blue and Noah were sitting.

"How are we going to get food?" Adam asked, walking back as well.

Ronan just stood there. Until a picnic basket hit him on the head.

"Fucking hell," he growled, but he grabbed the picnic basket and walked back anyways.

"So I guess we're staying," Noah said.

"Well, if we're staying, we might as well read it," Ronan said eyeing it in distaste.

"Right," Gansey said, "I'm not going to read all of this to you. Blue, you're reading next."

The only thing that Blue could think was that her mom was going to no _so _worried.


	2. Prologue

**I forgot to say last chapter, that all of the bolded, except for AN's belong to Maggie Stiefvater. And the character too. I don't own any of it. At all. **

* * *

**Prologue**

**Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she's been told that she would kill her true love. Her family traded in predictions. These predictions tended to run toward the nonspecific.**

"But yours is specific," Adam pointed out.

"I'm an anomaly," Blue shrugged.

**Things like:** _**Something terrible is going to happen today. It might involve the number six. **_**Or: **_**Money is coming. Open your hand for it. **_**Or: **_**You have a big decision and it will not make itself. **_

"That sound like a load of crap," Ronan said.

"Your a load of crap," Blue muttered.

Noah, who sat right beside her and the only one who heard her, snorted.

**The people who came to the little, bright blue house at 300 Fox Way didn't mind the imprecise nature of their fortunes. It became a game, a challenge, to realize the exact moment that the predictions came true.**

"Sounds interesting. I might go sometime when we get out of here," Gansey said.

Everybody ignored the "if we get out of here," from Ronan

Blue shrugged, "I suppose. Some people don't find the things that their looking for though," she warned.

**When a van carrying six people wheeled into a client's car two hours after the psychic reading, he could nod with a sense of accomplishment and release. **

Ronan raised an eyebrow, "Who would feel accomplished when their car gets wrecked?"

**When a neighbor offered to buy old lawn mower if she was looking for a bit of extra cash, she could recall the promise of money coming and sell it with the sense that the transaction had been foretold. Or when a third client heard his wife say, **_**This is a decision that has to be made, **_**he could remember the same words being said by Maura Sargent over a spread of tarot cards and then leap decisively into action. **

"Is Maura your mom?" Noah asked Blue.

"Yeah, she's awesome," she said.

"What's your dad's name?" asked Adam.

"I don't know," Blue told him, "He died before I was born and my mom never told me."

**But the imprecise nature of the fortunes stole some of their power. The predictions could be dismissed as coincidences, hunches. They were a chuckle in the Walmart parking lot when you ran into an old friend as promised. A shiver when the number seventeen appeared on the electric bill. A realization that even if you discovered the future, it didn't change how you lived in the present. **

"Oh," Adam muttered,"That's what you mean by you don't always find what you're looking for."

"It's not always that though. Sometimes you get the news that you, or somebody you know are not going to make it to see next year," Blue said, eyes flickering to Gansey.

They all stared at him.

"It's fine, maybe this book will show us how to change it," Gansey said.

"Maybe this book isn't even true, did you ever think of that?" Ronan said.

"You don't really believe that, do you," Gansey stated.

Ronan was silent.

**"I should tell you," Maura always advised her new clients, "that this reading will be accurate, but not specific."**

**It was easier that way. **

**But this was not what Blue was told. Again and again, she had her fingers spread wide, her palm examined, her cards plucked from velvet-edged decks and spread across the fuzz of a family friend's living room carpet. Thumbs were pressed to the mystical, invisible third eye that was said to lie between everyone's eyebrows. **

"Really?" Gansey asked, holding his hand between his eyebrows.

"I wouldn't know," Blue shrugged.

**Runes were cast and dreams interpreted, tea leaves scrutinized and séances conducted. **

**All the women came to the same concision, blunt and inexplicably specific. What the all agreed on, in many different clairvoyant languages was this: if Blue were to kiss her true love, he would die. **

"How would he die?" Adam asked.

"It never said," Blue said.

**For a long time, this bothered Blue. The warning was specific, certainly, but in the way of a fairy tale. It didn't say how her true love would die. It didn't say how long after the kiss he would survive. Did it have to be a kiss in the lips? Would a chaste peck on the back of his palm prove deadly?**

The boys all cringed.

"I didn't like the uncertainty," Blue said, "that's all. I don't need to kiss anybody."

But it seemed like she was trying to convince herself as well.

**Until she was eleven, Blue was convinced she would silently contract an infectious disease. One press of her lips to her hypothetical soulmate and he, too, would die in a consumptive battle untameable by the modern medicine. **

"I see what you mean by the uncertainty," Gansey said.

**When she was thirteen, Blue decided that jealousy would kill him instead - an old boyfriend emerging at the moment of that first kiss, bearing a handgun and a heart full of hurt. **Blue read, her face burning red.

Ronan snorted.

"Well," Noah read slowly, "you're pretty enough for it."

Adam eyes her, face turning a little red.

Blue's face turned redder, "Thanks."

**When she turned fifteen, Blue concluded that her mothers tarot cards were just a pack of playing cards and that the dreams of her mother and the other clairvoyant women were furled by mixed drinks rather than otherworldly insight, and so the prediction didn't matter. **

"See? It's not true," Ronan said, "Can we eat now?" He said holding up the picnic basket.

"After this chapter," Gansey said.

**She knew better though. The predictions that came out of 300 Fox Way were unspecific, but undeniably true. Her mother had dreamt Blue's broke wrist on the first day of school. **

"And she still let you go to school?" One of the boys said incredulously.

"Yes," Blue said.

**Her aunt Jimi predicted Maura's tax return to within ten dollars. Her older cousin Orla always began to hum her favourite song a few minutes before it came on the radio. **

"That's actually really cool," Adam said.

Blue flashed him a grin.

**No one in the house really doubted that Blue was destined to kill her true love with a kiss. It was a threat, however, that had been around for so long that it had lost its force. **

"That's dangerous," Gansey warned.

Blue rolled her eyes.

**Picturing a six-year-old Blue in love was such a far-off thing thing as to be imaginary. **

"Ah," Gansey said, "yes, that would be weird."

"I can't really picture you in love as you are now," Ronan said.

"Nor can I," Blue agreed.

**And by sixteen, Blue had decided she would never fall in love, so it didn't matter. **

"I don't think it's something you can decide," Adam said softly.

"Even if I did, he'd know never to kiss me. I'd tell him," Blue said.

**But that belief changed when her mother's half sister Neeve came into their little town of Henrietta. Neeve had gotten famous for doing loudly what Bleu's mother did quietly. Maura's readings we're done in her front room, mostly for residents of Henrietta and the valley around it. Neeve, in the other hand, did her readings on television at five o'clock in the morning. She had a website featuring old soft-focus photographs of her staring unerringly at the viewer. **

"It's creepy. She arrived a few days ago. She doesn't even blink," Blue said.

"Show us," Gansey demanded with a good natured smile.

"I don't think I can. I'd look weird or just laugh," Blue said.

**Four books on the supernatural bore her name on the cover. Blue had never met Neeve, so she knew more about her half aunt from a cursory web search than from personal experience. Blue wasn't sure why Neeve was coming to visit, but she knew her imminent arrival spurred a legion of whispered conversation between Maura and her two best friends, Persephone and Calla - the sort of conversations that trade off into sipping coffee and tapping pens on the table when Blue entered the room. **

"Calla and Persephone are psychic too," Blue told them.

"Their not your aunts?" Adam asked.

"No, but sometimes it feels like they are," Blue said.

**But Blue wasn't particularly concerned about Neeves arrival; what was one more woman in a house filled to the brim with them?**

"How many people live in your house?" Adam asked.

"Well, there's my mom and I, my cousin Orla, my aunt Jimi, my half aunt Neeve, my moms best friends Calla and Persephone. So seven people in total," Blue said.

Ronan let out a whistle.

"That's a lot of people," Adam said impressed, "how big is the house?"

"It's just a two story house. Not big at all," Blue informed them.

**Neeve finally appeared on a spring evening when the already long shadows of the mountains to the west seemed even longer than usual. **

"She'll be coming around the mountains when she comes," Ronan sung.

Blue snorted.

**When Blue opened the door for her, she thought, for a moment, that Neeve was an unfamiliar old woman, but then her eyes grew used to the stretched crimson light coming through the trees, and she saw that Neeve was barely older than her mother, which is not very old at all. **

"How flattering," Ronan said flatly.

**Outside, in the distance, hounds were crying. Blue was familiar enough with their voices; each fall, the Aglionby Hunt Club rode out with horses and foxhounds nearly every weekend. **

Blue shook her head.

"What?" Gansey said, confused.

"It's just... Your school is so rich it's funny," Blue said.

**Blue knew what their frantic howls meant at that moment: They were on the chase. **

**"You're Maura's daughter," Neeve said, and before Blue could answer, she added, "this is the year you'll fall in love."**

The boys shivered.

"Well," Blue said passing the book to Noah, and swallowing thickly, "Breakfast time?"


	3. Chapter 1

**Again, I don't own any of the characters, or the bolded words, except for the author notes. Also, a moment for the Canadian soldiers that were killed this month in Ottawa and Montreal, and for all of the soldiers fighting for their countries.**

After their breakfast, the teens picked up the book again. Noah was the one reading this time.

**Chapter One**

**It was freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrived.**

"That's not a sentence you hear every day," Adam murmured.

**Every year, Blue and her mother, Maura, had come to the same place, and every year it was chilly. But this year, without Maura here, it felt colder.**

"What? Mom's not there?" Blue asked, confused.

"Why are you there if your mom's not?" Adam asked.

"I make it stronger. The connection," she explained, "if I'm not there, the dead won't even acknowledge mom."

"Why?" Gansey asked.

"It'll probably explain later in the book," Blue said.

**It was April 24, St. Mark's Eve. For most people, St. Mark's Day came and went without note. It wasn't a school holiday. no presents were exchanged. There were no costumes or festivals. There were no St. Mark's Day cards in once a year. No one marked April 25 on their calendar. In fact, most of the living were unaware that St. Mark even had a day named in his honor.**

**But the dead remembered.**

"Spooky," Ronan said in a sing song voice.

Gansey elbowed him, leaning towards Noah as if Gansey needed to be closer to hear.

**As Bule sat shivering on the stone wall, she reasoned that at least, at the **_**very**_ **least, it wasn't raining this year.**

"You have to stay out in the cold all night, while it _rains_!?" said Adam, who had never really liked the rain.

"If I don't, mom can't get the names of the people that she doesn't know," Blue said.

**Every St. Mark's Eve, this was where Maura and Blue drove: an isolated church so old that it's name had been forgotten. the ruin was cupped in the densely wooded hills outside of ** **Henrietta, still miles from the mountains proper. Only the exterior walls remained; the roof and floors had long ago collapsed inside. What hadn't rotted away was hidden under hungry vines and rancid-smelling saplings. **

"Sounds nice," Ronan muttered sarcastically.

"It has a certain beauty to it," Blue defended.

**The church was surrounded by a stone wall, broken only by lych-gate just large enough for a coffin and its bearers. A stubborn path that seemed impervious to weeds led through to the old church door.**

"Beautiful, huh," Ronan said.

"You haven't even seen it," Blue protested.

"**Ah," hissed Neeve, plump but strangely elegant as she sat beside Blue on the wall. Blue was struck again, as she had been struck the the first time she's met Neeve, by her oddly lovely hands. Chubby wrists let to soft, childlike palms and slender fingers with oval nails. **

"**Ah," Neeve murmured again. "Tonight is a night."**

"No," Ronan said sarcastically, "I would've never guessed."

**She said it like this: "Tonight is a **_**night**_**," and when she did, Blue felt her skin creep a little. Blue had sat watch with her mother for the past ten St. Mars's Eves, but tonight felt different.**

**Tonight was a **_**night**_**.**

"A little overdramatic there, are we?" Ronan laughed.

"Shut up," Blue said, tense.

He snickered, but did as she asked.

**This year, for the first time, and for reasons Blue didn't understand, Maura sent Neeve to do the church watch in her place. Her mother asked Blue if she would go along as usual, but it wasn't really a question. Blue had always gone; she would go this time. It was not as if she had made plans for St. Mark's Eve. But she had to be asked.**

"Why?" Adam asked.

"My mom doesn't like telling me what to do," Blue said, "If you keep reading, it might explain her logic."

**Maura had decided sometime before Blue's birth that it was barbaric to order children about, and so Blue had grown up surrounded by imperative question marks. **

"Maura sounds really awesome," Gansey informed her.

"She is," Blue said, smiling as she thought of her mother.

**Blue opened and closed her chilly fists. The top edges of her fingerless gloves were fraying; she'd done a bad job knitting them last year, by they had a certain trashy chic to them.**

"You can knit?" Adam asked.

"That's what it said, didn't it," Ronan snarked.

Adam and Blue shot him twin glares.

**If she hadn't been so vain, Blue would've worn the boring but functional gloves she'd been given for Christmas. But she **_**was **_**vain, so instead she had her fraying fingerless gloves, indefinitely cooler though also colder, and no one to see them but Neeve and the dead. **

"I don't get girls," Ronan muttered.

"Nobody does," Gansey said, patting him on the back.

Blue had to cover her mouth to hide her smile.

**April days in Henrietta were quite often fair, tender things, coaxing sleeping trees to bud and love-mad ladybugs to beat against windowpanes. But not tonight. It felt like winter.**

**Blue glanced at her watch. A few minutes until eleven. The old legends recommended church watch be kept at midnight, but the dead kept poor time, especially when there wasn't a moon. **

"Huh, who would've known," Adam muttered.

"Basically my whole family," Blue teased.

**Unlike Blue, who didn't tend towards patience, Neeve was a regal statue on the old church wall: Hands folded, ankles crossed beneath a long wool skirt. Blue, huddled shorter and thinner, was a restless sightless gargoyle.**

"You're pretty," Noah protested.

Blue gave him a small smile.

**It wasn't a sight for her ordinary eyes. It was a night for seers and psychic, witches and mediums.**

**In other words, the rest of her family.**

"Ooh, somebody's bitter," Ronan teased.

"I am not!" Blue protested.

"Ah, I see denial isn't just a river in Egypt," Ronan singsonged.

Blue narrowed her eyes at him, "You're right, it also crosses through many other countries, including Uganda and Kenya."

At the boys odd looks, she said defensively, "What? I had to do research it last year."

An odd look on his face, Noah started reading again.

**Out of the silence, Neeve asked, "Do you hear anything?"**

**Her eyes glinted in the black.**

"**No," Blue said, because she didn't. Than she wondered if Neeve had asked because Neeve** _**did.**_

"That's… actually pretty creepy," Gansey said, frowning.

Blue shrugged. She was used to it.

**Neeve was looking at her with the same look she wore on all the photos on the website - the deliberately unnerving, otherworldly stare that lasted several more seconds then was comfortable. **

"Spooky," Ronan said, "Does all of your family do that?"

"Nobody else I know does that, let alone my family," Blue said.

**A few days after Neeve arrived, Blue had been distressed enough to mention it to Maura. They had been crammed into the single bathroom, Blue getting ready for school, Maura for work.**

"You only have one bathroom?" Gansey blanched.

"Yes, well, we can't all be as rich as you and own a mansion," Blue muttered.

Adam nodded in agreement.

"But you have seven other people living in your house!" Gansey protested.

Blue just rolled her eyes at him.

**Blue, trying to clip all of the various bits of her dark hair back into a vestigial ponytail, had asked, "Does she have to stare like that?"**

**In the shower her mother drew patterns in the steamed glass door. She had paused to laugh, a flash of her skin visible through the long intersecting lines she had drawn, "Oh, that's just Neeve's trademark."**

**Blue thought there were probably better things to be known for.**

Ronan snickered at her.

Blue struggled not to make a face at him.

**In the churchyard, Neeve said enigmatically, "There is a lot to hear."**

The boys exchanged looks behind Blues back.

**The thing was, there wasn't. In the summer, the foothills were alive with insects buzzing, mockingbirds whistling back and forth, ravens yelling at cars. **

"That does sounds kind of nice," Noah admitted.

"It is," Blue said, her eyes wistful.

**But it was cool, tonight, for anything to be awake yet.**

"**I don't hear things like that," Blue said, a little surprised Neeve wasn't already aware. In Blue's intensely clairvoyant family, she was a fluke, an outsider to the vibrant conversation her other and aunts and cousins held with a world hidden to most people. The only thing that was special about her was something that she herself couldn't experience. **

"Not bitter about it she says," Ronan said.

Blue decided to ignore him this time. But only this time.

"**I hear as much of the conversation as the telephone. I just make things louder for everyone else."**

**Neeve still hadn't looked away. "So that's why Maura was so eager for you to come along. Does she have you at all her readings as well!"**

**Blue shuddered at the thought. A fair number of the clients who entered 300 Fox Way were miserable women hoping Maura would see love and money in their future.**

"Wouldn't they rather figure that out for themselves?" Adam asked, a furrow in his brow.

"They're looking for hope that their future would turn out better than their past. Is that so wrong?" Blue asked earnestly.

"I suppose not," Adam concluded.

**The idea of being trapped in the house all day was excruciating. Blue knew it had to be very tempting for her mother to have Blue present, making her psychic powers stronger. When she was younger she'd never appreciated how little how little Maura called on her to join in a reading, but now that Blue understood how well she honed other peoples talents, she was impressed at Marua's restraint. **

"**Not unless it's a very important," she replied. **

**Neeve's gaze edged over the subtle line between discomforting and creepy.**

"That's it," Adam declared, "I never want to meet her."

A chorus of agreements came from the boys.

"You're so lucky," Blue informed them, "You have a choice. She _lives_ with me."

"**It's something to be proud of, you know. To make someone else's psychic powers stronger is a rare and valuable thing."**

Blue snorted in laughter.

"**Oh, **_**pshaw**_**," Blue said, but not cruelly. She meant to be funny.**

**She had sixteen years to get used to the idea that she wasn't privy to the supernatural. She didn't want Neeve to think she was experiencing an identity crisis over it. She tugged a string on her glove.**

"**And you have plenty of time to grow into your own intuitive talents," Neeve added. Her gaze seemed hungry.**

Everybody shivered.

**Blue didn't reply. She wasn't interested in telling other people's futures. She was interested in finding out her own.**

"Well," Ronan told her, "It looks like that's happening."

Blue, for the first time, laughed at something he said.

**Neeve finally dropped her eyes. Tracing an idle finger through the dirt on the stones, she said, "I passes by a school on my way into town. Aglionby Academy. Is that where you go?"**

**Blue's eyes widened in humor. But of course Neeve, an outsider, wouldn't know. Still, surely she could have guessed from the stone great hall and parking lot full of cars that spoke German that it wasn't the sort of school they could afford. **

"Adam's family has no money," Ronan pointed out.

"Ronan," Adam hisses, his face flaming red.

Ronan waved him off, but Blue peered, interested, at Adam.

"**It's an all boys school. For politicians' sons and oil barons' sons and for-" Blue struggled to think who else might be rich enough to send their kids to Aglionby- "The sons of mistresses living off of hush money."**

Ronan burst out laughing.

"Oh man," he howled, "I bet half of the kids going there are exactly that!"

Gansey sniggered while Adam and Noah hid their laughs behind their hands.

Blue smiled.

**Neeve raised an eyebrow without looking up. **

"**No, really, they're awful," Blue said. April was a bad time for the Aglionby boys; as it warmed up, the convertibles appeared, bearing shorts so tacky only the rich would wear them.**

Gansey studied his pants, "My pants are fine, right?"

Blue hesitated in answering.

"Right?"

**During school week, they all wore the Aglionby uniform: khaki pants and a V-neck sweater with a raven emblem. It was an easy way to identify the advancing army. Raven boys.**

**Blue continued, "They think they're better than us and that we're falling all over ourselves for them, and they drink themselves senseless every weekend and spray paint the Henrietta exit sign."**

"Do not," Adam objected.

"Well somebody does," Blue stubbornly said, "And it's not the locals."

**Aglionby was the number one reason Blue developed her two rules: One stay away from Aglionby boys because they were trouble. **

"I…" Gansey started, but then he glanced at Ronan, "Well, I can't refute that."

Blue gave them a smug smile.

**And two, stay away from Aglionby boys because they were bastards.**

"Not _all _of us," Noah protested.

"Fine," Blue rolled her eyes, "Not all of you are bastards. You seem better than some others that I've met, I'll grant you that."

"**You seem like a very sensible teen," Neeve said, which annoyed Blue, because she already knew she was a very sensible teen. **

"Modest are we," Ronan asked.

"Very," Blue nodded, serious for two seconds before she burst out laughing.

**When you had as little money as the Sargents did, sensibility in all matters were ingrained young. **

Blue's face flushed red, and the boys pretended not to notice.

**In the ambient light from the nearly full moon, Blue caught sight of what Neeve had drawn in the dirt. She asked, "What is that? Mom drew that."**

"**Did she?" Neeve asked. They studied the pattern. It was three curving, intersecting lines, making a long sort of triangle. "Did she say what it was?"**

Gansey leaned forward, a sort of hungry light in his eyes.

Noah shuffled back nervously.

"**She was drawing it on the shower door. I didn't ask."**

"**I dreamt it," Neeve said, in a flat voice that sent a shudder along the back of Blue's neck. "I wanted to see what it looked like drawn out." She rubbed her palm through the pattern, then abruptly held up a beautiful hand.**

"Okay, we get it," Ronan grumbled, "She has nice hands."

Gansey shushed him, ignoring incredulous look Ronan sent him.

**She said, "I think they're coming."**

Even Ronan was staring intensely at Noah in anticipation.

**This is why Blue and Neeve were here. Every year, Maura sat on the wall, knees pulled up to her chin, staring at nothing, and recited names to Blue. To blue, the churchyard remained empty, but to Maura, it was full of the dead.**

A chill went down the spine of each of the boys.

**Not the currently dead, but the spirits of those who would die in the next twelve months. For Blue, it had always been like hearing on half of a conversation. Sometimes her mother would recognize the spirits, but often she would have to lean forward to ask them their names. Maura had once explained that if Blue wasn't there, she couldn't convince the to answer her - the dead couldn't see Maura without Blue's presence.**

"Why is that?" Gansey demanded, turning his intense stare to Blue, "Why do you make the connection stronger?"

"I have asked that question many times," Blue told him, glad her voice didn't waver when they all turned their burning looks onto her, "If I were going to find it anywhere, I think it would be in this book."

They all turned back to Noah, who had started fidgeting.

**Blue never grew tired of feeling particularly needed, but sometimes she wished **_**needed**_ **felt less like a synonym for **_**useful**_**.**

**The church watch was critical for one of Maura's most unusual services. SO long as clients lived in the area, she guaranteed to let them know if they or a local loved one was bound to die in the next year. Who wouldn't pay for that? Well, the true answer was: most of the world, as most people didn't believe in psychics.**

"And you do?" Ronan asked, "I mean, you have to know you people who scam people for a living."

"My family isn't made up of liars," Blue said quietly, and she looked Ronan in the eye, "I've gotten enough shit from everybody else to know that the only opinion that matters about them is my own. You can think they scam people for a living all you want, but that won't change that they don't and I know it."

There was a tense silence while Ronan and Blue had a staring contest, then Ronan looked away and said, "Alright."

The others relaxed, knowing that was as close to an apology as Ronan would ever give anybody.

And perhaps that was a glimmer of respect in his eyes.

"**Can you see anything?" Blue asked. She gave her numb hands a bracing rub before snatching up a notebook and pen from the wall.**

**Neeve was very still. "Something's just touched my hair."**

"Okay, that is creepy. That is too creepy," Adam declared.

"What would it feel like," Ronan said pensively, "to have a dead person touch your hair."

"Probably exactly what it feels like to have an alive person touch your hair, but colder," Gansey said dryly.

Noah set down the book and started rubbing his hands together.

**Again, a shiver went up Blue's arms. "One of them?"**

**In a husky voice, Neeve said, "The future dead have to follow the corpse road through the gate. This is probably another… spirit called by your energy. I didn't realize what an effect you would have."**

"She sound's like a phedophile," Ronan declared.

Blue didn't answer him, but Gansey said, "Ronan lay off Blue, okay? She looks… well she doesn't look too good."

Lost in thought, Blue didn't even look up from her hands.

**Maura had never mentioned **_**other**_ **dead people being attracted by Blue. Perhaps she hadn't wanted to scare her. Or maybe Maura just hadn't seen them - maybe she was as blind to these other spirits as Blue was.**

**Blue became uncomfortably aware of the slightest breeze touching her face, lifting Neeve's curly hair. Invisible, orderly spirits of not yet truly dead people were one thing. Ghosts that weren't compelled to stay on the path were another.**

"That…" Blue swallowed, "I've never been told of spirits going off of the path before."

"Too late, even Gansey doesn't want to go there," Noah smiled at her, but it was a little strained.

"Well…" Gansey said, "I would go there, but please don't let any of the dead touch me? Perhaps bring some of your family?"

Blue sent him a smirk, "Of course I'd bring my family, the only time you're going to see dead there is on St. Mark's Eve, and why would they send me alone?"

Even Blue had to admit that she sounded a little bitter.

"**Are they -" Blue started.**

"**Who are you?" Robert Neuhmann," Neeve interrupted. "What's your name? Ruth Vert. What's your name? Frances Powell."**

**Scratching quickly to catch up, Blue printed the names phonetically as Neeve solicited them. Every so often she lifted her eyes to the path, trying to glimpse - **_**something**_**. But as always, there was only the overgrown crabgrass, the barely visible oak trees. The black mouth of the church, accepting invisible spirits. **

"This sounds like something from a really cheesy love story. Soon you're going to see - what is it? The love of your life or something, you're going to find them and fall in love then he dies and all that," Ronan waved his hand.

"It's _impossible. _I won't see anybody," Blue said, her voice wavering with uncertainty.

"The summary said you would see Gansey," Adam tried.

"_Impossible,_" Blue insisted.

**Nothing to hear, nothing to see. No evidence of the dead except for their names written in the notebook in her hand.**

**Maybe Neeve was right. Maybe Blue was having a bit of an identity crisis.**

"I'm sorry Blue, but it's about time that you've admitted it," Adam said, sympathetically.

"I haven't admitted it," Blue sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

At the other dubious looks and Ronan's, "Sure, whatever you say Sweetheart," Blue glared and said, "It's in the book! That's weeks away."

"Uhhuh," Noah said.

**Some days it did seem a little unfair that all of the wonder and power that surrounded her family was passed to Blue in the form of paperwork. **

Blue slumped in defeat.

_**At least I can still be a part of it, **_**Blue thought grimly, although she felt about as included as a seeing eye dog. She held the notebook up to her face, close, close, close, so she could read it in the darkness. It was like a roster of names popular seventy and eighty years before: Dorothy, Ralph, Clarence, Esther, Herbert, Melvin. **

"My Grandma's name on my moms side was Dorothy," Noah offered.

"Follow the yellow brick road, you little munchkin," Ronan snickered.

"She used to call me munchkin," Noah said wistfully.

**A lot of the same last names, too. The valley was dominated by several old families that were large if not powerful. **

**Somewhere outside of Blue's thoughts, Neeve's tone became more emphatic.**

"**What's your name?" she asked. "**_**Excuse **_**me. What is your name?" Her consternated expression looked wrong on her face.**

**Out of habit, Blue followed Neeve's gaze to the center of the courtyard. **

**And she saw someone.**

"Buh, buh, buh!" Ronan said.

"That's not possible! You read it wrong!" she grabbed the book from Noah, reading and rereading the sentence.

"No! I won't kill anybody! No!" Blue yelled jumping up.

"Woah, Blue calm down," Adam scrambled up to grab her arm.

"Take deep breaths," Gansey soothed from beside him.

"It's okay," Noah added, patting her hair.

Ronan observed them from the sidelines, standing, but not joining in trying to keep Blue from hyperventilating

"I don't want to kill anybody," Blue said, clamer, but cold panic still gripping her insides.

"Why don't we keep reading," Ronan offered tentatively, "That way, if this is Gansey, we can keep him from dying, okay?"

They all shuffled away from Blue, but Adam had linked arms with her, and Gansey was holding her other hand. Both found that it made their hand tingley.

**And she saw someone.**

Noah read fast, trying to keep Blue from panicking even more.

**Blue's heart hammered like a fist to her breastbone. On the other side of the heart beat, he was still here. Where there should have been nothing, there was a person. **

"**I see him," Blue said. "Neeve, **_**I see him.**_"

All of them pretended that they didn't see Blue start to cry.

**Blue had always imagined the procession of spirits to be an orderly thing, but this spirit wandered, hesitant. It was a young man, in slacks and a sweater, hair rumpled. He was not quite transparent, but he wasn't quite there, either. His figure was as murky as dirty water, his face indistinct. There was not identifying feature to him apart from his youth.**

"So he's young," Adam rationalized, "That's something we know Gansey and him share."

**He was so young - that was the hardest part to get used to.**

**As Blue watched, he paused and put his fingers to the side of his nose and his temple.**

"That," Ronan said, "Is something Gansey does."

Gansey was silent.

**It was such a strangely **_**living**_ **gesture that Blue felt a little sick. Then he stumbled forward, as if jostled from behind.**

"**Get me his name," Neeve hissed. "He won't answer me and I need to get the others!"**

"**Me? Blue replied, but she slid off the wall her heart was still ramming inside her rib cage. She asked, feeling a little foolish, "What's your name?"**

Blue took in a shuddering breath.

**He didn't seem to hear her. Without a twitch of acknowledgment, he began to move again, slow and bewildered, toward the church door.**

_**Is this how we make our way to death? **_**Blue wondered. **_**A stumbling fade-out instead of a self-aware finale?**_

**As Neeve began to call out questions to the others, Blue made her way toward the wanderer.**

"**Who are you?" she called from a safe distance, as he dropped his forehead into his hands. His form had no outline at all, she saw now, and his face was truly featureless. There was nothing about him, really, that made him human shaped, but still, she saw a boy. There was something telling her mind what he was, even if it wasn't telling her eyes.**

**There was not thrill in seeing him, as she had thought there would be. All she could think was, **_**He will be dead within a year. **_**How did Maura bear it?**

Gansey bit his lip. He wouldn't grab the book from Noah and skim until he found out if the boy was him. He _wouldn't_

**Blue stole closer. She was close enough to touch him as he began to walk again, but still he made no sign of seeing her. This near to him, her hands were freezing. Her heart was freezing. Invisible spirits with no warmth their own sucked at her energy, pulling goose bumps up her arms.**

**The young man stood on the threshold of the church and Blue knew, just** _**knew **_**that if he stepped into the church, she would lose the chance to get his name.**

"**Please," Blue said, softer than before. She reached out a hand and touch the very edge of his not-there sweater. Cold flooded through her like dread. She tried to steady herself with what she'd always been told: spirits drew all their energy from their surroundings. All she was feeling was him using her to stay visible.**

**But it still felt like dread.**

**She asked, "Will you tell me your name?"**

**He faced her and she realized with shock that he wore an Aglionby sweater.**

"Gansey goes to Aglionby," Noah said quietly.

"**Gansey," he said.**

There was never any doubt that it was Gansey's name that was going to be read, but there is a difference between knowing that it is going to be said, and actually hearing it said it.

The book may not be real. But how could the rest of this happen? They just woke up in a clearing in a forest that was physically impossible to leave. A book and a basket of food appeared out of nowhere.

Blue quietly started to sob. Gansey was as pale as a sheet, but he still held Blue's hand.

Ronan stared at Gansey like he was going to drop dead if he looked away and Adam did the same.

Noah marked the page before closing the book, "I'm glad we're reading this. If it is real, we can be prepared. Make sure that Gansey doesn't die. This book will tell us how and when he dies, I'm guessing, and we can stop it from happening."

"Well said," Gansey said.

"You're not going to die Gansey," Noah said.

"We won't allow you to," Ronan agreed.

Blue said, wiping her tears away, "If I wasn't so embarrassed that I had just burst into tears in front of people that I don't know, I would have said something inspiring and uplifting."

"That was good enough," Gansey said, "It'll be hard for you too, since, apparently we're soul mates or something."

Blue started at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was joking or not.

"Well," Adam said, peering at the forgotten book, "There is still more left to read."

Blue started she hadn't even realized that he had left her side.

Adam handed the book back to Noah,

"**Gansey," he said. Though his voice was quiet, it wasn't a whisper. It was a real voice spoken from someplace almost too far away to hear. **

**Blue couldn't stop staring at his mussed hair, the suggestion of staring eyes, the raven on his sweater. His shoulders were soaked, she saw, and the rest of his clothing rain splattered, from a storm that happened yet.**

"Um, can I get a notebook?" Adam asked.

"I'm sorry, I forgot to grab mine on the way out," Ronan snarked.

"I wasn't asking you, I was thinking that if this place gave us food when we asked for it, maybe it could give us a notebook and possibly a pen as well?" Adam said.

First the pen came down. Then the notebook. They both hit Ronan on the head.

Ronan started cursing in different languages.

Blue stared at him, wide-eyed, "Does he know all those languages, or did he just learn the swear words?"

Gansey, Adam and Noah glanced at each other, then at Ronan then at Blue, "Yes," they chorused.

"Right," Adam said, Ronan still swearing in the background, "I'm just going to write down, 'don't let Gansey go out in the rain' and 'don't let Gansey kiss Blue.'"

"That's a good idea, but it rains fairly often here," Blue pointed out, ignoring the last point.

"I don't think he's repeated anything yet," Noah mused staring at Ronan.

"He could go on for an hour without repeating anything," Adam said, "I would know. He forced me to time him."

"How do I get him to stop?" Blue asked, "He kinda reminds of Calla when she's on her period. God knows nobody can stop her."

She got Ronan to stop swearing. She also got the other boys to cry they were laughing so hard.

"What's so funny?" Blue demanded.

"You just compared Ronan to a woman on her period!" Adam hallowed in between laughter.

"That pretty sums up his attitude," Gansey said grinning.

Blue's eyes ignited, "Excuse me?"

"You're not a feminist, are you?" Ronan asked, glaring at the group.

"Is there something wrong with being a feminist?" Blue's eyes narrowed at him.

"No, nothing at all," Ronan said.

Blue frowned at him.

"I do not act like a woman on her period!" Ronan finally snapped at the boys.

"I'm sorry Ronan, but you really do," Gansey said wiping away tears of laughter.

"You're sulky, you have a bad temper, you _love_ chocolate, and you're sullen all the time," Adam checked off.

"_Excuse me?_" Blue all but growled. She was joking but they didn't need to know that.

"I um think we should read now?" Noah asked, "Maybe not pissing her off is not a good thing?"

**This close she could smell something minty that she wasn't sure was unique to him, or unique to spirits.**

**He was so real. When it finally happened, when she finally saw him, it didn't feel like magic at all. It felt like looking into the grave and seeing it look back at her. **

"**Is that all?" she whispered.**

**Gansey closed his eyes, "That's all there is."**

"My first name is Richard," Gansey told her.

Blue frowned.

**He fell to his knees - a soundless gesture for a boy with no real body. One hand splayed in the dirt, fingers pressed to the ground. Blue saw the blackness of the church more clearly than the curved shape of his shoulders.**

"**Neeve," Blue said. "Neeve, he's dying."**

All five went very, very pale.

**Neeve had come to stand just behind her. She replied, "Not yet."**

**Gansey was nearly gone now, fading into the church, or the church fading into him. **

**Blue's voice was breathier than she would have liked, "Why - why can I see him?"**

**Neeve glanced over her shoulder, either because there were more spirits coming or because there weren't - Blue couldn't tell. By the time she looked back, Gansey had vanished entirely. Already Blue felt the warmth returning to her skin, but something behind her lungs felt icy. A dangerous, sucking sadness seemed to be opening up inside her: grief or regret.**

"**There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark's Eve, Blue. Either you're his true love," Neeve said, "Or you've killed him."**

"I'm sorry," Blue told Gansey.

"I'm sure it was my fault," Gansey said, "You said it yourself, you're very sensible."

"If you're the one who did this to Gansey-" Ronan started to threaten.

"No! God no, I wouldn't ever kill anybody!" Blue protested, hurt.

"How am I supposed to know that?" Ronan demanded, "I only met you a few hours ago."

"Okay settle down," Adam platacted, "I'll read the next chapter."


End file.
